DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53553#0114
96
roof ngthe church, had fallen down and been killed on the
spot. But, although his death happened upwards of 130
years later than that of the countess, his state of preserva-
tion was in' no respect more perfect than her’s. Some fowls,
and two or three cats, which had been thrown down by mis-
chievous boys, were equally uncorrupted. On my enquiry
respecting the process and cause of this singular phenome-
non, I learned from the sexton, that no other process was
required than placing the subject in a perforated shell; that
after the first fortnight a fermentation ensued, which gradu-
ally produced a discharge of the internal juices; that the
more solid parts dissolved by degrees likewise, and that
when all the moisture had thus left the body, which gene-
rally required the space of from four to six months, it was
shifted to a dry cell, and there left to itself. Whether the
same process would prove equally successful in any other
place, I am incompetent to decide; so much is certain,
that the Bremen vault is remarkably dry, and even dusty,
as I found by my boots; although the city stands in a low,
marshy country, generally overflowed on all sides during
the winter months.
From the great number of Egyptian mummies, I greatly
suspect that that people had a method equally simple, for
curine* the bodies of at least the common class of their de-
o
ceased; for even the least expensive method of embalming
recorded by Herodotus, must, with any great number of
corpses, have been tedious and troublesome.
In some work of travels, I remember to have read, that,
in the northern parts of Siberia, the dead bodies, when once
buried under ground, never corrupt at all, the soil there
being frozen summer and winter ; and the power of the
sun, even in the former season, being so weak as not to
penetrate above a few inches below the surface.
All
roof ngthe church, had fallen down and been killed on the
spot. But, although his death happened upwards of 130
years later than that of the countess, his state of preserva-
tion was in' no respect more perfect than her’s. Some fowls,
and two or three cats, which had been thrown down by mis-
chievous boys, were equally uncorrupted. On my enquiry
respecting the process and cause of this singular phenome-
non, I learned from the sexton, that no other process was
required than placing the subject in a perforated shell; that
after the first fortnight a fermentation ensued, which gradu-
ally produced a discharge of the internal juices; that the
more solid parts dissolved by degrees likewise, and that
when all the moisture had thus left the body, which gene-
rally required the space of from four to six months, it was
shifted to a dry cell, and there left to itself. Whether the
same process would prove equally successful in any other
place, I am incompetent to decide; so much is certain,
that the Bremen vault is remarkably dry, and even dusty,
as I found by my boots; although the city stands in a low,
marshy country, generally overflowed on all sides during
the winter months.
From the great number of Egyptian mummies, I greatly
suspect that that people had a method equally simple, for
curine* the bodies of at least the common class of their de-
o
ceased; for even the least expensive method of embalming
recorded by Herodotus, must, with any great number of
corpses, have been tedious and troublesome.
In some work of travels, I remember to have read, that,
in the northern parts of Siberia, the dead bodies, when once
buried under ground, never corrupt at all, the soil there
being frozen summer and winter ; and the power of the
sun, even in the former season, being so weak as not to
penetrate above a few inches below the surface.
All